Join Us at MVP Summit: Helping SMBs thrive through Teams
The Microsoft MVP Summit is just around the corner, and we’re excited to invite Microsoft MVPs to a Teams SMB–focused conversation designed specifically for you on March 24th at 11 am PDT. The session is exclusive to MVP Summit attendees, and it’s intended for MVPs who work closely with small and medium businesses—or who are passionate about how Microsoft Teams continues to evolve for the SMB audience. Why should MVPs join this session? Engage directly with the Microsoft Teams product team focused on SMB. Share real-world insights and feedback from your customers and partners. Learn how we’re thinking about SMB-specific scenarios and where Teams is heading. Connect with fellow Microsoft MVPs who care deeply about Teams and SMB innovation Attending MVP Summit in person? If you’ll be joining us in Redmond for the MVP Summit, we’d love to meet you face to face. Stop by to say hello, put names to faces, and have an informal, candid conversation with the team. These discussions are invaluable to us—and we’re always eager to hear what’s working well and where we can do better. The MVP Summit is a unique, invitation-only forum for open, two-way dialogue, and this session is all about ensuring that the SMB voice—represented by Microsoft MVPs—continues to shape the future of Teams. We’re looking forward to the conversation and hope to see you there. 👉 summit.microsoft.comAccidental Teams Free deletion email sent out - explanation and FAQs
Hi folks - My name is Sam Cosby and I help run the Customer Experience & Obsession side for Teams Free Organizations within the Teams Engineering Team at Microsoft. Thanks for feedback from some Teams Free users on the following thread, as this has helped convey a clear problem that we needed to address. The following post is to explain that particular problem in further detail, with some additional FAQs that should help us understand further for anyone who may have seen this. I'll follow up on this thread once the bug is fully resolved. I received an email stating my trial is ending for Microsoft Teams (Free), but I didn’t sign up for a trial, why did I receive this? Back in January of 2021, there was an implementation of a new method to help reduce the number of Teams Free organizations that go unused over a 90-day period of inactivity by deleting them. Only organizations that did not have any sign-ins during this period and/or the grace period after the 90 days (120 days in total), would eventually become deleted. Unfortunately, there was a bug that sent out notification emails to Teams Free Admins even if their organization was in use during the past 90 days. We’ve since fixed this bug and expect that we shouldn’t see any additional emails be sent out to organizations that have been recently used. Figure 1: Example of accidental email sent out. Will Teams Free still delete in the next few weeks? No, as long as Teams has been in use in the past 90 days. While there are articles out there that have shown Teams Free Admins how to view their license ‘duration’, it’s been confirmed that once the fix goes live that any Teams Free orgs impacted with the above email will be ‘extended’ automatically and won’t have to worry about any data loss. Why does Teams Free have a deleted state? There was a new organization deletion method created back in January of 2021 to help reduce organization clutter by implementing a new deletion policy on organizations that go unused over a 90-day period of inactivity by deleting them. Only Teams Free organizations that did not have any sign-ins during this period and during the 30-day grace period after the 90 days (120 days in total), would eventually become deleted. Will documentation be updated? Yes. We realized that while this new method to help reduce organization clutter was released, the documentation unfortunately did not get updated as expected. We’ll be making changes to this as soon as we can to address the new deletion policies for Teams Free orgs moving forward. What does deleted mean for Teams Free? When the subscription is deleted, customer data is deleted and Azure Active Directory is removed, if not in use by other services. Users can’t access Teams, files/apps/services in this state.Microsoft Teams Engineering Opportunity for Small and Medium Business
Teams Engineering is inviting a limited number of customers to share feedback on Teams applications currently under development to enable high value experiences for small and medium businesses. This program kicked off late 2021 with limited capacity but we are excited to share that we have added a few more spots in the new year. Come join us! Read on to learn more about the opportunity, benefits and next steps if you are interested in participating. Join Teams Engineering to: Explore how Teams capabilities can enable experiences for sales, commerce, customer service, and procurement Directly engage with fun, creative Teams product managers who are passionate about empowering small and medium businesses Connect with other small and medium businesses leveraging Teams Influence Teams product features by sharing your experience and insights Receive Teams stickers and other swag Customers who are accepted into this program will: Participate in live, interactive feedback sessions (estimate two, 60-minute meetings per month) Participate in Teams application validation including potentially testing pre-release code Respond to surveys and other asynchronous feedback methods to provide details on your experiences using the applications Eligible customers: Organization size of 2-300 employees Active Microsoft Teams usage in your production Microsoft 365 tenant Active NDA with Microsoft (don’t worry if you don’t have an NDA in place today – if you are interested in this opportunity, we will help you complete the NDA process as a first step) Next steps: If you are interested in this unique opportunity, and we hope you are, just complete this form to get more information and next steps https://aka.ms/TeamsAppPilot. We have limited space, and participants will be selected on a first come first serve basis.
